Acts 3

1. Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the 2 ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid 3 daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered 4 into the temple; who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. 5 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed 6 unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have 7 I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up 8 and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his 9 feet and ancle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered 10 with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. And all the people 11 saw him walking and praising God: and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at 12 the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that 13 which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and 14 John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly 15 wondering. 16 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye 17 at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we 18 had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God 19 of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the 20 presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One 21 and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, 22 whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through 23 faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which 24 is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, 25 brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, 26 which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, 27 he hath so fulfilled. 28 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the 29 times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus 30 Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the 31 times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy 32 prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall 33 the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in 34 all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, 35 which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and 36 all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have 37 likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant 38 which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the 39 kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent 40 him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

THE apostle enforces his exhortation to repent by an appeal to the final coming of Christ, not because he would represent it as near in point of time, but because that event was always near to the feelings and consciousness of the first believers. It was the great consummation on which the strongest desires of their souls were fixed, to which their thoughts and hopes were habitually turned. They lived in expectation of it; they labored to be prepared for it; they were, in the expressive language of Peter, looking for and hasting unto it. It is then that Christ will reveal himself in glory, will raise the dead, invest the redeemed with an incorruptible body, and introduce them for the first time and for ever into the state of perfect holiness and happiness prepared for them in his kingdom. The apostles, the first

Christians in general, comprehended the grandeur of that occasion; it stood forth to their contemplations as the point of culminating interest in their own and the world’s history, threw into comparative insignificance the present time, death, all intermediate events, and made them feel that the manifestation of Christ, with its consequences of indescribable moment to all true believers, was the grand object which they were to keep in view as the end of their toils, the commencement and perfection of their glorious immortality. In such a state of intimate sympathy with an event so habitually present to their thoughts, they derived their chief incentives to action from the prospect of that future glory; they hold it up to the people of God to encourage them to fidelity, zeal, and perseverance, and appeal to it to warn the wicked, and impress upon them the necessity of preparation for the revelations of that day. Hackett.

1. Strong as was the contrast in natural character and disposition between Peter and John, these were the two of all the twelve who finally drew closest together. The day of Pentecost wrought a great change upon them both, and by doing so linked them in still closer bonds. The grace was given them which enabled each to struggle successfully with his own original defects, and to find in the other that which he most wanted. It is truly singular, in reading the earlier chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, to notice how close the coalition between Peter and John became. W. H.—Now and for a considerable period, they are joint leaders of the apostolic band, Peter the speaker, John the counselor and inspirer.

While on their way to the afternoon service of daily worship in the temple, they are accosted. It should be borne in mind that the disciples had no command to withdraw at once from the Jewish worship. According to the universal law of God’s acting, there were no sudden or extreme transitions directed by the Holy Spirit. Judaism was not to be overthrown and obliterated, but gradually transformed by the infusion into it of the spirit of Christianity. Sacrifice and incense were to them merely symbols of the death now accomplished for sin, and the intercession now availing in the heavens. For a time, therefore, and with the purpose of using these ceremonials to impress the realities they shadowed forth upon other minds, the disciples retained their relation to the Jewish church, and conformed to its pure temple worship. We shall find the illustration of this in the further history.

2, 3. A Lame Man asks Aid of Peter and John at the Temple Gate.—The parallel to this case is the impotent man at Bethesda (John 5). That man was thirty-eight years a wreck. This one had never walked, and for forty years had been recognized and known as a helpless dependent cripple. For a long time he had been carried every morning to the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, there to solicit help from the multitude of passers-by. As the name implies, this was the most magnificent and costly of the nine chief gates. Forming the eastern entrance to the Temple, it fronted the holy place or sanctuary, and was more frequented than any other. (Vol. I., p. 623.)

4-6. Peter’s Double Reply.—First, concentrating his gaze, with that of John, upon the suppliant, he answers, “Look on us!” They had learned the Master’s method, and were now practicing it. He, almost always, tarried to question, or to interpose some act which required delay. And his purpose was always the same; to excite or deepen expectation, faith, hope on the part of the helpless needy one. He always helped the spirit first; led it to trust, and then deepened the trust by rewarding it with healing. So the twain disciples stirred the man to expect some gift—how much, he knew not.

Then followed Peter’s response to the man’s entreaty: “Rise, walk, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth!” A stupendous, sublime faith in Christ’s absolute Deity and Lordship stands out in these bold words! To these disciples he is indeed the living reigning God. His own spirit of mercy toward misery led them thus to invoke his willing might for deliverance of the wretched. And it is the title of the Cross by which they invoke his presence and favor, the name by which he was lifted up, by which he was already known, and by which he would draw all men unto him. Surely the poor sufferer had heard and knew full well this name, and the sound stirred his heart to more than expectation, even to faith. For there was no doubt or hesitation. He obeyed so far as he could, in his will and heart. And this was faith, a dawning feeble but real faith!

7, 8. The Restoration, and its Effects upon the Healed Man.—Not only by Peter’s expression of utter dependence upon the power of Christ, but also by his act in taking the man’s hand and lifting him up, do we distinguish the disciple’s miracle-working from the Master’s. Christ spoke, sometimes touched, but never used physical strength in connection with any miracle. This act of Peter has also significance, on one side, as proving his faith in his own bold command, to rise; and on the other, as indicating that faith to the man, and so helping to excite the corresponding faith and effort in his soul. The restoration which instantly followed, and the added miracle of instantaneous ability to walk and leap (for one who had never walked), proved and justified the word and deed and faith of Peter. And the restored man’s exclusive praise to

God, in entire disregard of the apostle for the time, as conclusively proved the reality of his faith, and of his recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord and God. So “his name, through faith in his name, made this man strong.”

Like many miracles of healing, this may be regarded as a parable of redemption. It suggests these points: imperfection of a far deeper and more grievous kind as the universal birthright of the fallen soul; its helplessness and hopelessness of human cure; the limit of friendly interest and help, bringing the soul in the arms of faith, and pleading with God the prayer of faith; the sinner’s responsive willingness, desire, and faith; and the consequent healing and forgiveness in the name and by the Spirit of Christ.

Obedience, willing submission to God is the first act of a returning soul. This man obeyed in his will and heart, and in this he did all that he could. So let every soul seeking life obey the first felt duty, obey it by prayer, or act of consecration, but obey it in will and heart. Then Christ’s Spirit will give life. We may well believe that this man’s soul was quickened to a peculiarly deep trust and consecration. In him, and in the many Christ had healed, apart from their natural joy and thankfulness for great restoration, there must have been wrought a depth and strength of conviction concerning his divine Messiahship that nothing could shake. “I, at least,” each must have said and often repeated, “I, at least, know him to be my Saviour and my Lord!” And how large the ministry and effective the testimony for Christ, of this vast company of the physically and spiritually healed, none can adequately measure! B.

9-11. Effect upon the People.**—For years he must have been one of the persons best known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this tended further to magnify the miracle when he appeared at the hour of public prayer in the Temple, “walking, and leaping, and praising God.” K.—They saw him restored, heard him praising God for his restoration, and knew that it was the same whom they had long noticed lying helpless at the gate; and they were filled with wonder and amazement. Isaiah’s prophecy had been literally fulfilled before their eyes, “The lame man shall leap as a hart.” Other wonders had the apostles performed during the now considerable interval since the Pentecost, but none so marked as this by the clearest proof of divine power. It was designed, we afterward see, as an occasion of another great discourse, another immense ingathering of saved souls; and also proved the immediate cause of the first hostile movement of the priests and rulers. The tidings of the miracle rapidly spread through the city, and a multitude of people thronged into the Temple. They gathered in the wide space, beneath the lofty double-pillared portico on the eastern side, called Solomon’s, because standing on a terrace which he had raised from the valley beneath. Here they found the healed man standing between Peter and John, holding a hand of each in token of his grateful affection to them, while still praising God for his restoring power. And with this visible, most affecting testimony before them, Peter, as a fisher of men, seizes his opportunity, and preaches again to the multitude Christ and him crucified. (Vol. I., p. 620.)

12. He answered, not to any uttered question, but as Christ so often is said to have answered, to the unspoken state or inquiry of the minds and hearts gathered around him. And as we have seen the power of Jesus’ name in the healing of this one body and soul, so in the result of this second sermon we see it in the healing of thousands of souls.

13-15. Their God had glorified, but they had denied and killed Jesus, the Prince of Life.**—It was no other than the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, their only, proudly acknowledged God, whose Son this Jesus was, whom they had just before rejected, scorned, and murdered. This great crime is pressed upon them in its particular aggravations by sharp contrasts. Peter thus helps them to see themselves and their guilty deeds as the God of their fathers sees it. The Holy Spirit directs and uses the charge to convince of the sin of not believing in Christ—everywhere, in all generations, the sin of sins, set down as the only sin that brings condemnation. So the apostle tells them that when Pilate, an uncircumcised, untaught heathen, sought again and again to rescue and release this Son of their God, they, whose accepted Scriptures plainly revealed his divine Sonship, yet pushed their cruel murderous hate to the very end, and killed their own Prince and Saviour. Still more to press their consciences, he contrasts with this pure spotless being, whose death they had demanded, the murderer Barabbas, whom they in their madness of unbelief had preferred and released from deserved death. “You spared,” he says, “the destroyer, and doomed to destruction the Saviour of life!” He concludes this clear, plain-spoken home-charge with the assertion, again, of the resurrection of Jesus, as a proof that he is the Prince of life. And he responds again to the Master’s word, “We are witnesses!”

16. Christ’s Name or Power, exerted in Response to Faith, had healed the Lame Man.**—“Ye delivered him up, denied him, preferred a murderer, killed him, but he, the Prince of Life, risen again and ascended, hath wrought this soundness in the man before you, because of our faith, and his, in his divine willingness and might.” B.—The old carnal thoughts of his mission had been left in his grave, and could never rise from it again. It was the “Prince of Life” who had risen from the dead; it was the “King of Glory” who had passed into the heavens. And no less did these facts declare the spiritual consequences of his manifestation, since they carried with them the implication of those three corresponding gifts, which we celebrate for evermore, saying with solemn joy, “I believe . . . the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Toward these topics the preaching of Christ in the Acts of the Apostles continually turns. T. D. B.

17,18. Peter has spoken plainly. The truth of his charge made it severe. He sees the effect, and then practices another lesson he had learned from the Master. With gentleness and an excusing spirit he seeks to heal after wounding. So Christ had excused the three unwatchful disciples (Peter among them) during his agony, “The flesh is weak.” And so had he pleaded on the Cross for his slayers, “They know not what they do!” Now the disciple calls these murderers brethren, and repeats in substance that plea upon the Cross, “Through ignorance ye did it”; and still further goes his gentle, forgiving spirit (now so changed!), “as did your rulers.”

And, as Joseph to his brethren, “Ye meant it for evil, but God for good,” Peter comforts them with the fact that their guilty deed God had overruled for (it might be) even their own salvation. All their prophets had announced this very deed of theirs as God’s way of showing mercy to transgressors. He means to assure them that Christ’s blood, though shed by them, was also shed for them, for their forgiveness and cleansing.

19-24. Recall and fix the meaning of these words. Repent is to change the mind, to reverse the current of thought, feeling, will, from self to God; therefore the Scripture says repentance toward God. Be converted is to change the life, to correspond with the changed thought and feeling. One result of this double, entire change is the utter erasure of the sin that our past life has set down in the Book of Account. So God says, “I have blotted out thy transgressions, and will not remember them any more for ever.”

The other result is figuratively intimated here. There are diversities of interpretation concerning the times here spoken of. It would seem that the “times of refreshing” referred to the fullness of blessings possessed under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, until the “times of restitution,” or restoration. These latter times, and their consummate blessings, avowedly attend and characterize the second coming of Christ. To all these blessings, promised by all the prophets, and especially by that prophet to whom Moses explicitly referred, by Christ himself, to all the blessings that he has introduced with his first coming, and all that he shall bring at his second coming, the repenting, returning, forgiving, believing soul has access now and hereafter. While from these “every soul who will not hear that prophet” shall be excluded. This is the substance of Peter’s earnest plea. It is made more effective with them, as it is based upon the declarations of Moses and all their own prophets. Compare Gen. 17 : 14 and Deut. 18 : 15-19. And now, in conclusion, he gathers and emphasizes the entire truth he has spoken, his charge of guilt, his excuse, his counsel and encouragement to repentance and faith in Christ. In the way of concentrated promise and appeal,

25, 26. He declares Jesus to be the Promised Seed of Abraham, the Son of God, sent to bless them, every One.—“Children of the prophets and of the covenant,” he calls them; those who have a hereditary interest and intimate connection with the prophecies and promises of God. Frankly Peter acknowledges their descent and their privileges, purposely classing himself among them to strengthen the force of his words that follow: “Unto you first,” in the fulfillment of this long-continued covenant, God has sent this Jesus, his Son, to bless you. But plainly and faithfully he tells them, what as a people they had long been ignorant of, that the main blessing of this their old and long-trusted covenant first made with Abraham was the turning away every one from his iniquities. Not restored temporal power or national exaltation, which had been their dream for generations, but the cleansing of their souls through the blood of Christ. And he intimates as clearly that without this saving from sin, through personal repentance and conversion, all the covenants and promises, through patriarchs and prophets, would be only occasions of a deeper condemnation. The discourse was rudely interrupted at this point, but not till it was completed. The effect is narrated in the next chapter. Two thousand more believed—5,000 men in all.

We discern a wonderful comprehensiveness and unity in the discourse. The substance of all revelation, the purpose of all the divine counsels and acts from the beginning, the subject of all divine predictions by the mouth of successive prophets, the theme of all divine promises, center in and upon the person, the suffering, the sacrifice of Christ, upon the incomparable spiritual and eternal blessings he has brought with his first coming, and will bring with his second appearing. John sums it all up in a single sentence at the close of the inspired canon: The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!

discourses. They here believingly recognize that this combined agency of rulers and people against Jesus only accomplished the merciful purpose of God, and laid foundations for the establishment and spread of his gracious salvation in all the earth. And with this basis of faith in God’s overruling power bringing to pass his purposed redemption, how simply unselfish and manly is the spirit and substance of their prayer! “Now, Lord, behold their threatenings!” No word or thought of vengeance against these malignant murderers and persecutors. Only, behold thou, and interpose as thou wilt, and when thou wilt! And for themselves, they ask no immunity from further persecution or danger, only that their faith and courage may not fail, that they may hold on in their work of testifying for Christ and preaching the Word. Not for the destruction of their enemies and the removal of obstacles, but for steadfastness to endure persecution, boldness to face and strength to surmount difficulties. They do indeed ask for God’s miraculous interposition, but not for their help or comfort. Stretch forth thy hand in healing to give assurance that the Word is thine, and that Jesus is Lord and Christ. There is a wonderful simplicity and concentration of faith in God’s Word and Christ’s work embodied in this first prayer of the infant Church! And the faith was regarded in the instant answer. B.